Chapter 1 – The Beginning of an Uncanny Friendship
I blinked at the basket, curiously and eyed my mother. "What's this, ma?" I asked, softly, wonderingly, making sure to glance at the basket so that my mother could see what I mean. Her lips curled up in a small, sweet smile. "This, sweetheart, is a picnic basket full of delicious food." I frowned. Well that was quite obvious but for what? "But for what, ma? We can't go anywhere 'cause daddy said so." My mother smiled again, ruffling my hair, "Aah, we're not going anywhere. This is for the next door neighbors who just moved in." I blinked, looked at the basket and back to her. "Oh. Can I come too?" I grinned at her when she smirked and nodded. "We're all going whether we like it or not. Go and bring your sister." I gave a whoop of joy and bound towards our room. I was so happy we were going to meet the neighbors but one thought bothered me. This town was fairly small and uninteresting. Why would anyone want to move here?
After dragging my ten year old sister with me, we made it towards the neighbor's house. Me, being two years older than my sister, stayed with my mother while my sister, enthusiastically, rang the door bell. My sister rocked on her heels, waiting, while my mother and I stood patiently. I blinked when the door opened and a beautiful woman peeked out. My eyes widened and I glanced at my family, also seeing their eyes widen. My mother quickly recovered and she smiled at the beautiful woman. "Hi. Welcome to our neighborhood. If you don't mind, I brought you some food as a welcome gift," she waved the picnic basket and the other woman smiled warmly, opening the door slightly. "Thank you very much. My name is Eva. And who might you and your lovely young daughter's be?" My sister grinned enthusiastically, "Hi, I'm Yumnah and she," she pointed towards me, "is my sister, Sara. I'm ten years old." My mother quickly pat Yumnah's head warningly. Eva giggled slightly and welcomed us in. "Oh that is just great. My sons would be delighted to meet you. Please, won't you come in?"
We entered in and my sister's and my mouth dropped open when we saw the fancy furniture. The room we had entered was the sitting room and it had a huge bookshelf full of various genres of books. All I could utter was a 'wow' and I made my way to it, brushing the spines with my finger tips. Who knows what secrets those tomes were holding? Eva's giggling made me come back and she smiled at me, "I see someone loves books as much as Vergil does. You and he will get along quite well. Which reminds me...VERGIL! DANTE! COME DOWN NOW! WE HAVE GUESTS!"
What happened next was unexpected. One of the boys, who looked to be my age, came running in so fast that he tripped on the carpet and fell on his face. If I didn't have one of those tea biscuits, that Aunt Eva had brought in, in my mouth, I surely would have laughed. My sister, on the other hand, couldn't take it and she rolled on the floor, laughing out so loud that I think I went deaf. Another boy, his twin, had entered but, unlike his brother, he came with a regal air, like a king walking among his subjects. This had me surprised. I never imagined meeting twins in my life, who were polar opposites. He bowed towards our mothers and sneered towards me and my sister. I glared at him and turned towards the book case, not acknowledging him. From the corner of my eyes, I saw my sister stick her tongue out at him and I smirked. Take that, Mr. I'm-too-good-for-anyone. My mother and Eva started conversing again while Yumnah talked to Dante, who seemed to be animatedly telling her about this anime he watched. I sat there with "Legends and Myths" opened up, debating whether I should go and sit next to Yumnah and Dante or somewhere in the corner, far away so that I could read. I didn't notice anyone sitting next to me and was taken out of my thoughts when fingers brushed on mine that were holding out the book.
"You have seem to taken a liking to one of my books. How…surprising." I blinked at Vergil and nodded. "Well, I have always loved reading. I'm quite diverse when it comes to my preference in my reading material." Vergil nodded and directed me to another book. That is how our uncanny friendship started.
After our visit, Eva and the boys, especially Vergil, enjoyed our company and they would often visit us and vice versa. Although Vergil was sometimes fun to talk to, I spent most of time with Dante and Yumnah since they liked playing games. I asked Vergil once if he liked playing games and he gave me a haughty sneer, saying that those were for babies and sissies. Even then, it saddened me that he was too mature for his age. True, so was I but even I liked to have a little fun from time to time. Dante was much more easy going of the twins. There was never a dull moment with him and we loved every minute of it. There was this one moment where the mail man had come to check the mail box and we shot him with our water guns and threw paint balloons at him. The poor man ran away, screaming at the top of his lungs while we snickered until we got caught. Let's just say our paint balloon throwing days were over.
It was true Vergil could be a haughty jerk sometimes but he had his sweet moments. I noticed he usually showed it only to me and his mother. I still remember when I was grounded; he would come to my room at night with a book from his extensive library. He would always tap at the window to let him in, come and sit on the bed and read to me until I fell asleep. There was this one time I was half asleep and I thought I was dreaming when he kissed my forehead. Ever since then, I had a girlish crush on him and would blush whenever he would look at me. Dante and Yumnah teased me endlessly for this and sometimes I wished I could hide under a rock. My mother just brushed it aside but she would often smile knowingly at me when Vergil would enter and it would make my cheeks flame from the embarrassment.
After two years, that was when the tragedy happened. Ms. Sparda's house was flamed and there was a huge attack on the town. Both our parents died on that night and we had run to see whether the twins and Ms. Eva were alright. We had barely made it when Ms. Eva came out, frantically trying to push the twins outside. She eyed us and was about to shout when a huge scythe lodged itself into her chest and a monster was looming over her and the twins. We shouted and tried to run to them but were stopped by Vergil. Vergil gave me a look that said 'run and don't turn back'. My sister sobbed hysterically and I shook my head but was startled when Vergil gave an impatient shout to run. Looking at him one last time, we turned and ran, not knowing this wasn't the last time I would see him.